In the News
Roll Call: Carpenter, Primo, Tendetnik and Ho: Campaign Finance Disclosure Has Costs
By Dick M. Carpenter II, David M. Primo, Pavel Tendetnik and Sandy HoNOTE: David Primo is a CCP Academic AdvisorEven a candidate who agreed to post the disclaimer confided to us over the phone: “I hope this does not hurt my donations. I wouldn’t want this to spook any of our donors so that they would not contribute.”
CCP
Not All Contributions are Equal
By Joe TrotterPublic outcry over corporate involvement in politics was at an all time high during this last campaign season. Although the inauguration is not an overtly partisan affair, how is funding the winning candidate’s victory parties after the inauguration any less corrupting than a direct campaign contribution?
Independent groups
NY Times: When ‘Super PACs’ Become Lobbyists
EditorialThe “super PACs” and secret-money groups that polluted this year’s election with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of largely ineffective attack ads are not slinking away in shame. Many are regrouping and raising more money for a task that is no less pernicious: lobbying Congress and the White House on behalf of their special-interest donors, using the new, anything-goes rules of super PACs to make their advocacy more powerful.
Politico: The un-super PACs
By Dave LevinthalIn fact, more than 100 super PACs have closed shop in 2012, 59 this month alone, the Sunlight Foundation reports.
SCOTUS/Judiciary
NY Times (Letter to the Editor): Citizens United Ruling
By Floyd AbramsYou state correctly that in neither case did the court make anything of the fact that The Times is a corporation. But that is the point. In those cases, as in Citizens United, political speech was held protected regardless of who was speaking or what its corporate status was. As Justice Anthony M. Kennedy explained in Citizens United, “the First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.”
Candidates and parties
Roll Call: Jackson Resignation Spurs Crowded Race for the House in Chicagoland
By Shira ToeplitzThe resignation of Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. has opened a pipeline of aspiring Chicago Democrats eyeing the vacant seat.
Roll Call: House GOP Leaders Try to Connect With CEOs
By Daniel NewhauserIn an effort to find allies in the business community, Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and other House GOP leaders will meet with the CEOs of several major U.S. companies Wednesday morning as Congress begins serious negotiations on the fiscal cliff.
Lobbying and ethics
NY Times: Ethics Panel to Scrutinize Congressman From S.I.
By ALISON LEIGH COWANThe House Ethics Committee said Monday that it had authorized an inquiry into the campaign finances of Representative Michael G. Grimm, a Staten Island Republican who is already under investigation by federal prosecutors.
State and Local
IL –– Pantagraph: Lawmakers eye curbing casino political donations
By Kurt Erickson“There are ways of doing it that would be constitutional,” said David Morrison, deputy director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.
